The present invention relates to the new and distinct Red Hot Poker, Kniphofia ‘Hot and Cold’ hybridized under the direction of the inventor at a wholesale perennial nursery in Zeeland, Mich., USA on Aug. 16, 2012 and seeds were collected in the fall of 2012. The new plant was a single seedling selection resulting from a cross of ‘Echo Mango’ U.S. Plant Pat. No. 21,706 as the female parent or seed parent and ‘Sally's Comet’ (not patented) as the male parent or pollen parent. The plant passed initial evaluation in the summer of 2014 and was subsequently given the breeder code 12-3-1 prior to naming. Kniphofia ‘Hot and Cold’ has been successfully asexually propagated by division method since 2014 at the same wholesale perennial nursery in Zeeland, Mich. and subsequently by shoot tip tissue culture, and both methods have been found to be stable and produce identical plants that maintain the unique characteristics of the original plant through multiple generations.
No plants of Kniphofia ‘Hot and Cold’ have been sold, in this country or anywhere in the world, with this name or any other name, prior to the filing of this application, nor has any disclosure of the new plant been made prior to the filing of this application except that which was disclosed within one year of the filing of this application and was either derived directly or indirectly from the inventor.